


47 Hours

by FireSoul



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Discussion of Abortion, F/M, Hey World! Fix it, Kid Fic, Sudden Baby Trope, post 4x13
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-02-15 18:13:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 15,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18674890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FireSoul/pseuds/FireSoul
Summary: What if the egg at the end of "Egg MacGuffin" hadn't been a dragon's egg? What if it was some other type of mystical egg? And, of course, it is now Zari and Nate's problem.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So, the other day I was rewatching this old Disney cartoon "Buzz Lightyear of Star Command" and the episode was The Yukari Imprint and, because that was in my head, at the end of Legends this week there was a full two seconds where I truly believed the egg was Yukari type egg. So here's the fic for that!

“That is what I’m feeling.”

There’s a twitch in her ankle, the panic alarms are blaring in her head and her every instinct is telling her to run. But Zari keeps her hands firm on Nate’s shoulder’s, her eyes on his and waiting for rejection.

“I feel the same.”

The butterflies explode in her stomach, a small smile of relief on her face. She actually has no idea what to do now, she never though she would get this far, but before she even knows it her head is moving back down and Nate is leaning up to meet her. Their lips are back together within a second, and it feels so good she wonders why she was ever afraid of this.

She’s only just started to feel the pleasant squeeze of Nate’s hands underneath her ass when the moment is broken by a cracking sound.

She turns, Nate looking past her, and their eyes settle on the golden egg in the corner wavering no more than a hair.

Shit.

They’re both across the room within the instant, bent over the egg and staring at it as though the next big crisis is about to come exploding out.

“Gideon…” She asks anxiously, because whether it comes exploding out right this second or not this egg is likely to be their team’s next biggest problem after Neron and Ray.

That is, assuming it doesn’t hatch now and leave them with two problems at once.

“What kind of egg is this?”

“This is a Yukari egg, Ms. Tomaz.”

She looks at Nate, who looks at her with equal confusion, and then at the ceiling.

“A what?”

“A Yukari egg.” The ever-clear AI repeats. “A species of shape shifter. The Yukari are unformed for most of the incubation process, however, forty-eight hours before hatching the shell will process any genetic material on it’s surface and combine the two most prominent samples to create the permanent form of the Yukari.”

Zari blinks, trying to process the information.

“Uh…” Nate gapes, “How do… What?”

“Gideon?” Zari asks as the information sinks in and her heart goes with it. “You said uh… that the thing isn’t formed until forty-eight hours before hatching. We just saw it move.”

“According to my scans the Yukari began forming roughly one hour ago, after processing DNA residue left on its shell by fingerprints.”

Oh crap.

She’s going to throw up. No question, she is going to be sick.

“Zari?”

It’s Nate’s voice, but he sounds like he’s a million miles away. He’s looking at her with worry and holding an arm out as if she might faint, which she really might.

“I’ve, I’ve been carrying that thing all afternoon.”

His eyes go wide and back to the egg.

“Gideon?” He asks, his voice almost as weak and scared sounding, “Can you uh… can you tell us what DNA samples the um… the egg is using?”

Gideon’s blue light passes over the egg and Zari holds her breath, even if she already knows what’s coming.

“I cannot, at least, not entirely accurately. There are three prominent samples of DNA on the surface of the shell, one belonging to a Mr. Vincent Arnolds circa 1933, and the other two from Ms. Tomaz and yourself Dr. Heywood. Ms. Tomaz’s appears to be the most prominent.”

Nate exhales shakily and Zari, she doesn’t even exhale. She can’t.

“Zari?”

She doesn’t look at him; she barely flinches when she feels his hand land hesitantly on her shoulder.

“Z, maybe you should sit down.”

Ordinarily she would insist that she’s fine, with anyone else she would insist that she’s fine, but this is Nate and she is _trying_ to lower her defenses around him. So she lets him lead her over to the nearest med chair and ease her down to it. It was only what? Two minutes ago? That she was on cloud nine for a blissful two seconds before that egg had thrown everything into a downward spiral?

She puts her head in her hands, which apparently worries Nate because the next thing she knows he is crouched in front of her with his hands gripping her wrists.

“Hey, hey it’s ok. It’s ok.”

“Is it?” She snaps without really thinking about it, whipping her head up and looking at his adorably concerned eyes. “Nate I don’t want a kid.”

“I know, I know.” He says, getting up to pace the floor in front of her. “Ok. Ok. Oh god. This morning we could barely talk to each other and now we might be having a kid together.”

She nods, her mind reeling as Nate starts to sit down next to her. She scoots over to make room but it isn’t enough, at least, not under these circumstances, and so he goes back to pacing.

“Ok. Ok let’s just… Lets think this through. Gideon said that the DNA is taken from two samples-”

“Yeah out of three. And Gideon also said it started forming an hour ago. I was holding it an hour ago, and all afternoon. Nate that kid is probably going to end up being mine!”

She cuts herself off; she needs to breath in order to keep her voice from rising anymore. Meanwhile Nate is still pacing, up and down in a small circle, never letting his eyes land on the egg.

Until he does.

His gaze falls on it and he stops. “Gideon?” He asks, “Can you tell us who’s DNA is more likely to be used?”

There’s a pause, hopefully of Gideon calculating rather than ignoring them, and even though Zari knows that her DNA is likely at the top of the probability list she still holds her breath, until the computerized voice finally answers the question.

“According to my scans, there is a 99.9% chance that the egg is processing Ms. Tomaz’s DNA, a 49% chance of your DNA Dr. Heywood, and a 51% chance of Mr. Arnolds.”

She shutters.

It’s all she can do.

A confirmation that this kid is going to be hers, that much she was expecting, even if she was dreading it. But hearing the chances of the other DNA are that close, and even so, not in Nate’s favor, she has no idea what to do with that information.

“Ok.” Nate breathes, “Um… is there any way that after it hatches we can find out..?”

He won’t say father. He _can’t_ say father. She doesn’t blame him. There is another, very similar, word that she can’t bring herself to so much as think; and it’s much more definite for her.

“Of course.” Gideon answers, all too happily. “Upon hatching I can take a blood sample from the child and compare it to your own DNA samples to determine the child’s parentage.”

Parentage.

Crap.

She is going to throw up.

She looks up at Nate, who is already looking at her with unease. She opens her mouth to ask what he wants to do, to ask what _she_ should do.

“Hey.”

But Sara appears in the doorway, “Get to the bridge, we’ve got a problem.”

She looks between them, she must feel the tension in the room, despite whatever the problem is she’s come to tell them about.

“Are you two ok?”

They look to each other, but there’s no decision to be made. They don’t know where to begin with something like this, and if Sara has come all the way down here herself to get them that means she needed the walk to think through where she was going to start.

I.E., her problem is big too.

“Yeah.” She answers for both of them, standing up.

Nate looks back to her, as if to ask if she’s sure, so she gives him an encouraging smile and he turns his attention back to Sara.

“We’re fine.” He confirms, though she doesn’t think Sara totally buys it. She probably thinks they were about to hook up, oh well.

“Good, lets go.”

Sara marches from the room with that and they follow her, though Nate does glance back as if to ask her again if she’s ok.

She avoids his eyes by looking away, a mistake that puts her gaze solely on the egg.

It isn’t moving. It’s sitting still as ever. If the thing inside only started forming an hour ago then, according to Gideon, they should have time to think over and discuss what to do with it.

Forty-seven hours and counting.

It isn’t nearly enough time.


	2. Chapter 2

So Neron still has Ray, and now Gary and John, and they’re in the wind.

Perfect.

Zari knows she should be MUCH more concerned about this than she currently is, but she can’t snap her mind away from the med bay, and the damn egg sitting in it.

Nate, who she hasn’t taken her eyes off since Sara announced the demon problem, is leaning his hands heavily on the back of a chair and has been pretty much since they arrived on the bridge.

“Hey,” she says quietly, approaching him now that the meeting is over. “You… How are you?”

He doesn’t look good, for the record, but then again she doubts she looks much better.

“I’m uh… You know, my best buddy is possessed by a demon and I just found out I might have a kid on the way so, you know.” He shrugs, “You?”

She nods and crosses her arm. “Yeah.” She says, no idea what else she could say. But then, like a sign from above, she catches Charlie out of the corner of her eye leaving the bridge.

“How about we catch up later?” She asks and while he looks skeptical at first he eventually nods.

“Yeah.”

She nods, and ok it doesn’t feel great leaving him right now, but she needs some information if she can get it and all she can do with him right now is panic, which isn’t going to help either of them. So she hurries off, and hopefully separating will give him some time to think as well, without having to worry about her.

“Hey Charlie.” She calls as she reaches the hall, her friend about to turn the corner at the other end but she stops and turns back at the sound of her name.

“Hey Z,” She says, “How was the mission? What’s they story with Nate?” She adds a dirty little smirk to her second question, and even under the circumstances Zari manages a quick, and annoyed, roll of her eyes.

“He’s good. Um, listen, you wouldn’t happen to know anything about Yukaris, would you?”

“Yukaris?” Charlie asks with a furrow of her brow. “Not much, but then again there really isn’t much to know. They’re imprintive shape shifters, though considering they do their only imprinting before hatching, they’re hardly shape shifters at all. Their form is determined by whatever has touched their egg before it hatches, and that’s their form for life.”

A thoughtful look crosses her face, like she’s wracking her brain for more information but can’t come up with anything that might be of importance. Honestly, Zari isn’t sure what she expected Charlie to say that would differ from what Gideon already did.

“Why?”

That’s a question she really should’ve been prepared for.

“No reason.” She answers, far too breathy and anxious than she would like. “But, just so I’m clear, once they start forming there isn’t any way to, I don’t know, change what it is they’re turning into?”

Zari doesn’t think she has ever seen Charlie confused before, not to this degree at least. She’s a shape shifter who spent centuries in a demon prison, naturally there isn’t much that even The Legends can throw at her to faze her. But this question, apparently, does the trick.

“No. They are quite literally the least useful form of shape shifter. They can’t-”

That’s when she stops, her eyes growing wide.

“No.”

Zari bites her lip.

“Z, you didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t pick up a Yukari egg!?”

“I didn’t know it was a Yukari egg!” She quickly, and quietly in hopes that Charlie will get the hint to lower her voice, defends herself. “I didn’t even know what a Yukari was until twenty minutes ago!”

“Twenty minutes ago?” Charlie demands, one hand on her hip. “What the bloody hell was going on twenty minutes ago?”

Zari sighs as she realizes she is going to have to tell the whole story.

“Z?”

“Come with me.” Zari sighs, and she starts leading the way.

“Where are we going?”

“To my room.” She snaps, “I am not having this conversation where anyone can walk by.”

 

* * *

 

He hates to say it, but Nate is almost happy when Zari leaves. He needs to get his head on straight, although he doesn’t exactly foresee that happening any time soon. He never pictured he would be in either of these situation; his best friend possessed or possibly having a kid, and he never thought he would be in both of these situations at the same time.

If he were just dealing with the kid thing that would be fine. Tough, but at least he could talk to Ray about it. But he can’t, because Ray is currently missing and possessed by a demon.

Now, with that situation, he knows it would help to talk with Zari about it. But he can’t do that because she is also dealing with the whole kid thing.

So his head is spinning, and in it’s spinning he catches a glance of Sara retreating into her office. He thinks about it for a second, with whatever brain cells of his that are still functioning that is. On one hand, he should probably talk things over with Zari before he tells the Captain anything. On the other hand he needs to talk to someone, and regardless of whose DNA that egg is using it doesn’t change the fact that Sara is going to have a baby on her ship in less than two days and she deserves to know.

Less than two days.

Yeah, he needs to get his head on straight.

He pushes away from the chair and takes a breath, trying to stop the world from looking like it did after he took the Lyoga root. He hopes he isn’t stumbling as much as he thinks as he crosses the bridge and eventually leans his weight against the open doorway of the office.

He doesn’t have to knock for Sara to see him, and he must be in bad shape because she looks worried as soon as she lays eyes on him.

“You alright?” She asks, a certain softness in her voice, like she knows the answer to the question as well as the reason why.

But she doesn’t. She doesn’t know the half of it.

“Not really,” He doesn’t bother lying. “I uh, I think I might be having a panic attack.”

He enters the office at that, the nearest chair his only focus. He is vaguely aware of the way Sara is looking at him, a mix of worry and understanding that she really has no business wearing because she _doesn’t_ understand, but she also doesn’t know that yet. He has to tell her, he has to say it.

But for now, he focuses on the chair.

While he’s doing that Sara gets up, and by the time he’s sunk into the life-saving seat she is by his side and placing a glass of water in front of him on the desk. He nods his thanks and gulps it down, all while she leans on the edge of the desk and studies him.

“We’ll get Ray back.” She promises, “Gideon is already searching the timeline for any sign of him, Constantine, or Gary; and Ava and Nora are working on it over at The Time Bureau.”

“I know.” He manages as he sets the empty glass down, some logic returning to his thoughts.

It’s that admission that starts to bring the world back into focus and allows him to organize his thoughts. He does know they’ll find Ray. He trusts both this team and The Bureau to do everything in their power to do that.

“Then take a few deep breaths and don’t worry about it.” Sara advises him, nudging his foot with her own. “Ray’s one of ours. We’ll bring him home.”

“Zari and I might have a kid.”

He hasn’t meant to blurt it out like that, but to be fair he isn’t really at the top of his game thinking wise. Sara is taken aback by it, nearly slipping off the edge of her desk but she covers that well enough and composes herself.

“I’m sorry?” She says after a minute, “You what?”

“Not yet, and maybe not mine. Zari’s definitely having a kid but… it might not be mine.”

Based on the way she’s gaping at him, he is going to say that doesn’t clarify anything.

He should try clarifying more, but that probably wouldn’t go any better and so instead he lets Sara take a minute to brush some hair out of her face and rub at her head.

“Did you go to the future?” She finally asks, looking at him seriously, and all he can do is shake his head no.

“Ok…” she drawls, “Wait, Zari hasn’t been in DC for that long.” She muses, and then her eyes go wide and she points a very accusing finger at him. “When did you guys-?”

“Not like that!” He interrupts; jumping to his feet and kicking himself for not realizing sooner how poorly he had phrased all of this.

“Not like that.” He repeats, Sara looking at him as though he is absolutely insane. “No. We did not, we haven’t, no. Just, no.”

She raises an eyebrow at him and he sighs, sinking back down in the chair and running his hands over his face.

“It’s a long story.” He groans, and when he looks back up she is actually smirking at him.

“Well,” she says, lifting herself up onto the edge of her desk. “I’ve got time.”

* * *

 

When Zari finishes explaining Charlie is looking at her wide-eyed and not at all amused, something that has her stomach twisting even more in knots. If Charlie where to tease her or crack a joke, then maybe she could find it easier to look at this as something that isn’t so bad. It might not be the most productive thing, but she wouldn’t mind hearing Charlie cackle right now and state the obvious that she has a big problem on her hands.

“So, Nate’s in there as much as the other guy?” Charlie finally asks, and Zari nods.

“Yeah.” She says quietly. “That Vincent guy was in charge of the egg after the expedition and he stole it, while I had the bottom of it wrapped in Nate’s jacket after we got it.”

Charlie nods, not even asking why she had Nate’s jacket in the first place.

“And you had it all afternoon?”

“Yeah.” She answers, her voice low and eyes avoiding those of her friend. “After we got it from Vincent and while we cleaned everything up, until we got back to the ship.”

Charlie blows out a long, probably steadying, stream of air after that, running her hands along her thighs until her mouth presses into a thin line again.

“Ok.” She says, her voice still so serious and her eyes so sincere when she meets Zari’s gaze. “What do you want to do?”

She doesn’t feel it coming.

Logically, she should’ve. She had to stop to breath several times while she explained things to keep herself from crying, and maybe she wasn’t totally oblivious to the tears welling in the corners of her eyes, but she hadn’t expected her breath to hitch like this and for them to come out in forceful sobs.

She can’t help it though, and before she can so much as try and stop it she feels Charlie’s arms coming up and around her and her face falls into her friend’s shoulder.

She doesn’t cry for too long, longer than she would like, and certainly long enough that she loses track of when Charlie started whispering to her that everything is going to be ok. She tries forcing herself to calm down after only a few seconds but her breaths just turn to gasping hiccups and Charlie starts rocking until she resolves to continue breaking.

“I don’t want kids.” She finally manages to get out after she’s gotten the worst of the tears out.

“I know.” Charlie whispers, her voice soft and… not pitying but… lost. She doesn’t know what to say, and while that doesn’t come as a surprise whatsoever Zari still shutters again with renewed sadness.

Charlie holds her another minute, until she has stopped shaking and her grip on her back has eased a bit. That’s when her friend finally pulls out of the embrace, just a bit, and keeps one hand on her arm while she uses the other to reach forward and tuck a strand of hair behind her ear.

“I’m sorry Z.”

Zari sniffles, and has she does Charlie, continuing to stroke her hair, actually cracks a tiny smile.

“Look at the bright side.” She says, “At least you don’t have to worry about being pregnant.”

She scoffs, though it comes through a smile of her own.

“Yeah.” She manages, and her voice is a little steadier than she’d thought it would be. “Because that would make sense.”

Charlie gives her a sad smile and keeps on carding her fingers through her hair. She’s finally managing to stop crying at this point, though she wonders if she’ll hit a second wave soon or if it’ll hold off until later. She’s sure she’ll hit one, either way, eventually.

“Z, and you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, but what would you do if you were pregnant?”  
Her mind stops.

It turns back on quickly, and she shutters, and Charlie picks up the pace of her fingers but makes no move to revoke her question.

“I uh… I don’t know.”

She hopes her friend won’t press beyond that, because it’s the truth. There is a part of her mind that is quick to answer “abortion” but honestly, if she were lying in the med chair with a pill in her hand or Gideon about stick something up into her, or whatever, she’s not sure that little voice would be saying the same thing.

She isn’t one of those people who always knew she didn’t want kids. She was a little girl once, with a dolly that had a crib and a bottle, and she cooed over her baby brother the day he came home from the hospital and thought he was the most perfect thing in the world. The decision to not have kids was one she grew into, as she grew up and her world became more than dolls and Behrad wasn’t a baby anymore. She found she liked her life with more freedom. Besides, the world was falling apart around her, why would she want to bring a kid into that?

She still doesn’t, but that kid is on it’s way whether she likes it or not, and even the little voice in the back of her head is recoiling at the idea of trying to stop it.

“Ok.” Charlie says, not asking for any reason but clearly not satisfied with the lack of a solid answer to her question. She takes her hand from Zari’s hair, but instead of reclaiming it she lays it over her hands.

“Well… If you want, and if you act fast, you could probably smash the egg before it, you know, gets too far along in forming.”

She’s looking at her lap, but she can feel Charlie’s eyes on her, trying to gauge her reaction. Maybe the suggestion isn’t even serious, but more of a test to see where her head is at, since she has not been forthcoming about that.

It isn’t like she has any idea herself.

But, she does know that she doesn’t like the queasy feeling that comes with the idea of smashing the egg and watching the partially formed Yukari splatter on the ground.

“No.” She murmurs, and says nothing more.

Thankfully, this time, it’s enough for Charlie to work with.

“Ok.” She whispers, leaning back over and before Zari knows it she is back in her friend’s comforting embrace.

* * *

 

By the time he finishes his story, Sara looks like she’s seen a ghost, but he at least feels a little better, and Nate will take that.

It helps, having it all out on the table. He can make more sense of it.

“Well.” Sara eventually says, after a good long moment of stunned silence. She reaches for the whiskey bottle on the side of the desk and two glasses, and pours a healthy serving in each one. “Any ideas of what you want to do about this?”

He buries his face in his hands. She gives him all the time he needs, something he more than appreciates, and when he finally forces himself to look up again she is holding one of the glasses out to him.

“I don’t know.” He groans, accepting the drink and tipping a good portion of it back. “Zari doesn’t want kids.”

She nods, fully aware that he isn’t just assuming.

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

She shrugs, “Well, there is half a chance this kid is yours. Do you want it?”

He hates that he both does and doesn’t have to think about that.

He doesn’t think, because the answer is yes. He would love to be a dad. Kids were never really a question for him. He had always assumed that he would grow up, meet a nice girl, have a family, and be a much better father than Hank ever was to him.

But a lot has changed since then.

He’s learned recently that life has a lot more to offer beyond the path of a white picket fence and coaching little league games, and while he still sees the attraction to that he knows his life is never going to be that “picturesque-normal”, and he likes it that way. If 2.5 kids and a dog in the yard were to be something that slipped through the cracks he’d be just fine with it. He likes Zari, a lot, and she doesn’t want that. He wants to see where things go with her, to see what she wants from life and if maybe it’s what he wants to.

The idea of raising their kid without her… he can’t even imagine it.

Or, what’s worse, he can.

He can just see himself, he doesn’t want to but he can, with his kid and his mom more than happy to help out, sending pictures to the other Legends, and Zari avoiding him like the plague.

“I don’t know.” He finally answers, the words a groan into his hands as Sara considers him. Sometimes he wonders if she was born knowing how to do that calculating look or if she learned it somewhere, but either way he feels like she is staring right into the depths of his soul.

“Think about it.” She finally says, taking a sip of her drink. “And then talk to Zari. Come to a decision, preferably before the thing hatches, and let me know if I need to get Gideon started on baby proofing the ship.”

He wants to laugh, because of course she would be totally cool with them having a baby on the ship, or maybe she doesn’t think they’ll really do that and she’s joking. Either way, his amusement with it falls flat and he resigns himself to feel bad about it later. For now he just get out of his chair.

“Yeah, we’ll keep you posted. Thanks Sara.”

“Anytime.” She says with a warm smile, pushing herself from the desk and wrapping her arms around him in a hug.

He clings to her tighter than he would like to admit, tight enough that he actually registers how much smaller than him she is, something he hardly ever notices. He pulls away after a moment and gives her a smile, thanks her again, and then he’s off to find Zari.


	3. Chapter 3

Zari knows she should go looking for Nate as soon as she leaves Charlie’s room but instead she goes to the med-bay. To be fair, she is half expecting to find him here, but she isn’t totally surprised that the room is empty, aside from the egg where they left it on the side table.

Her eyes fall on it right away, still wrapped up in Nate’s jacket and she lets out a shaky breath as she approaches.

“What do you think?”

It’s Nate’s voice behind her, and when she turns he’s watching her so intently her heart almost hurts.

“I could ask you the same question.”

He sighs and steps out of the doorway, his eyes briefly going to the egg before landing back on her, barely an inch away from her.

“I’m not going to lie to you, I’m honestly ok with the idea of having a kid.” He says, and hearing those words it feels like a weight has been lifted from her chest. “But,” and the weight is back. “Right now, I want to see where things go with you, and if you don’t want this then that’s fine and-”

She cuts him off with a kiss, something she can’t help smirking into when she feels him return it, and when she pulls away he looks completely dumbfounded, and understandably nervous.

“I can’t promise I’m going to be good at this, but I’ve been thinking about it and… Let’s have a baby.”

He looks at her, stunned, before that finally gives way to a smile and his hands tighten where they’d fallen on her hips.

“Yeah?” He asks, grin now spanning his entire face and she can’t help but match it.

“Yeah.”

He pulls her back into him, his lips meeting hers again and kissing her through their matching grins.

“Pardon the interruption.” Gideon’s voice rings out, very much interrupting the moment, and having them push apart. “But if you are serious about raising the Yukari then I feel I should inform you that it’s life readings are dropping.”

If she wasn’t sure before, she is more than sure now.

“What?” Nate snaps, his eyes wide as hers.

They both race the half step it takes to get over to the table, practically tripping over each other in the process. When they get there, despite the urgency, they both hover around the egg, as though touching it will make matters worse.

“The egg needs to be kept warm in order for it to properly develop.”

There is only a slight condescending tone in Gideon’s voice, but it makes Zari’s heart drop all the same. She should’ve known that, she _does_ know that, but she should’ve thought of it earlier.

“So what are we supposed to do, sit on it?” She asks.

“That would be a start.” Gideon snips back, “I would also suggest wrapping it in blankets.”

“Cheeky bot.” Zari grumbles, picking the egg up, along with Nate’s jacket, and holding it close to her. “Ok, Let’s get some blankets.”

* * *

 

They end up taking blankets from her room and bringing them to the lab for the egg to stay wrapped in while Nate sets up an incubator.

Zari would help him, but there isn’t exactly a safe place to just put the egg down, so she’s holding it in its bundle of blankets.

She watches him while he works, her body bouncing lightly of it’s own accord, and if he notices he doesn’t make a comment. She can’t help but compare what she’s watching to that of setting up a crib, a grass filled crib with a heat lamp clipped to the edge. On the same note, she can’t help but compare her own role here to that of feeling like a useless pregnant woman. True, in theory she could put the egg down and help, but there’s nowhere safe in here for that. So she’s standing off to the side, reading the directions whenever Nate starts to get lost.

She looks down at the egg, pushing back the corner of the blanket with her thumb and feeling the smooth texture of the shell. When she woke up this morning this is not where she’d imagined she would be today, not at all. Hell, even a half hour ago she was in Charlie’s room saying she doesn’t want kids, but as her thumb moves in smooth strokes over the gold colored shell her heart swells, happy with the thought of the little baby inside.

Terrified, but happy.

“Ok.” Nate proclaims, pulling her attention from her thoughts and over to where he is now standing proudly besides a completed incubator.

Zari approaches wordlessly and carefully lays the egg down in the center of the pile of Nate’s sheets and grass, right under the heat lamp. She takes her blanket off once it’s settled, they don’t want the egg overheating.

“Ok.” She echoes, balling up her blanket in her hands. “Now all we do is wait.”

Waiting, as it turns out, is not something they’re good at.

They leave the lab soon enough, because standing around and just _staring_ at the egg is awkward.

“So uh…” Zari starts as they walk down the hall, “Should we talk about this?”  
Nate stops in tracks, looking at her with this adorable deer in the headlight expression of cluelessness.

“I just mean,” She continues, a little awkwardly. “We’re going to have a kid in less than two days, there’s got to be some things we should talk about.”

More than some things, actually. The living situation for the baby is up at the top of this list; right now he’s living with his mom and she is alternating between The Waverider and his mom’s guest room. They also have to get baby supplies, though Gideon can probably help them with that, and they can’t go on calling it “the egg” or “the kid” forever.

Not to mention, is anything going to change with him if the kid turns out to be Vincent’s?

“Yeah, that’s an understatement.” He says, obviously thinking along the same lines as her.

He looks around the corridor, as if he’s looking for a safe closet or dark hole for them to disappear into. They settle for going a little further and into his room, and once the door is closed Zari finds that she suddenly wants to look anywhere but at him.

“Ok,” he says, awkwardly clapping his hands together. “Where should we start?”  
If that isn’t the question of the century.

“Um, well, who do we need to tell?” She asks, “I told Charlie.”

“And I told Sara.”

“So that leaves Rory, Mona, Ava, your mom-”

“Oh God.” He groans and so she stops. “My mom.” He continues, “How are we supposed to explain this to my mom? She doesn’t know about any of this!”

Zari thinks on it for a minute, crossing her arms and leaning her weight into one side.

“Well, I mean, you could tell her.”

Or maybe not, judging by the wide-eyed look of fear that takes over Nate’s face.

“Are you crazy?” He demands, “You know my mom, she isn’t exactly the secret keeping type.”

Ok, that’s fair enough.

“Ok, well it’ll be easy enough then if the kid turns out to be Vincent’s.”

“What?” He asks, genuine confusion on his face, and Zari won’t deny that makes her heart flutter just a little. “Why?”

She shrugs, trying to come off as nonchalant. “You know, it’ll just be easier to explain that I have a kid, rather than I have a kid with you.”

He looks like he wants to argue that, and she isn’t entirely sure why, but it doesn’t matter because in the end he nods and takes a step closer to her.

“Ok,” he agrees, “What else do we have to figure out?”

Too much, she thinks. They have far too much to talk about with so little time to do it.

“Everyone to the bridge.” Sara’s voice comes over the intercom, “We might have found Neron.”

So little time indeed.

* * *

 

Oh, they’ve found Neron alright, and Neron’s tricked them. Now they’re buried under miles of snow and freezing because they need to conserve the ship’s energy for whenever they can come up with a plan.

Which really sucks if you’re an egg dependent on a heat lamp.

“Crap.” Nate curses as the two of them walk into the lab. They hadn’t even been coming to check on the egg, not totally anyway.

Nate stormed off the bridge to keep from strangling Rory after he gave the order to shoot Ray, citing that as “when a teammate goes dark, you take ‘em out. Before they take you out.”

There had been too much regret in his voice for Zari think this was the first time he’d thought about it.

Anyway, she’d followed Nate off the bridge and they’d ended up on this path, and now here, with her hand reaching over the tank of the incubator and resting on room temperature eggshell.

“It’s gonna freeze.” She says; her words accompanied by a small sigh. “I can’t believe I’m about to do this, but I think it needs skin-to-skin contact.”

With that said she picks up the eggs and shoves it up under her shirt, holding it firm against her stomach. Her only thoughts are on how she hopes they’ve gotten here in time, that it isn’t too cold yet, and as things get colder they’ll be able to keep the egg warm enough…

But those thoughts trail off when Nate, very lightly, touches his fingers against the lump of her shirt.

When she meets his eyes he’s looking down at her, hesitant, imploring for permission. She nods, and he slides his hands until he’s cradling the shape of the egg with both palms.

“I think it’s working.” He says, wonder in his voice.

“Yeah,” she says, “But why does it feel like we skipped past all the fun stuff and straight to…” She frowns, glancing down at herself and where his hands are, and how this all must look; not to mention how that isn’t too far from the truth. “This?”

He shrugs, “We can still do fun stuff.”

She can’t explain what happens next. She looks up to tell him that they really can’t, not carelessly anyway. But his eyes meet hers and the next thing she knows their lips are moving together, their tongues wrestling and her arms come up around his neck, his hands keeping the egg safe where it is under her shirt.

“What about the egg?” She asks, pulling back just a hair, but he goes back for her mouth.

“We’ll wrap it in a blanket and put it on a chair.”

“Ok, sounds like a plan.”


	4. Chapter 4

If Zari is grateful for anything, it’s that she and Nate don’t run into anyone while they’re practically running to her room. He opens the door and races in first, practically throwing her comforter off the bed and into her face. She shifts the weight of the egg, still awkward underneath her shirt, into one arm and catches the blanket with the other.

“Sorry.” Nate says, wincing with sympathy.

“No worries.” She promises him, sliding the egg out from under her shirt and wrapping it up in the blanket.

Once she’s satisfied with that she sets the bundle down in her beanbag, backing up slowly, worried it might still somehow roll over the edge. Eventually she turns back to Nate, who is looking past her and at the egg with the same expression of worry.

“It’s good?”

“It’s good.” She confirms, though he doesn’t look entirely convinced.

“Are you sure?”

“Nate, do you want to do this or not?”

Well that certainly gets him moving.

He stumbles towards her, tripping over himself and he actually has to catch himself on her shoulders as his lips quite literally crash into hers.

She brings her hands up into his hair as soon as she feels him on her, walking them back towards her bed while her fingers slide through the hair gel he is so fond of. She wonders what his hair looks like when it’s not so meticulously set, and she has every intention of finding out.

They fall back onto the bed, her thumping lighting against his chest, not that she notices. She’s too distracted by the feeling of his face in her hands, the closely shaved stubble moving against her palms as his jaw starts to work it’s way down her neck.

She moans as he finds her pulse point, her hips grinding down against him and he gives a sharp suck to her skin that has her rolling her hips again.

“We should get out of our pants.” He whispers into the crook of her neck, and just the sound of his voice is enough to raise the hairs on her arms.

“Yeah.” She agrees, and her hips roll down against him one more time before she finally brings herself to push off his chest.

The air feels bitterly cold around her when she shrugs off her parka, and even more so when she starts to rid herself of her flannel. But that feeling soon goes away, replaced by a heat that comes from somewhere inside her when Nate gently covers one of her hands with his, and takes over undoing the buttons.

She watches him while he works, taking his time with each button until her shirt is hanging open. That’s when he meets her eyes, with so much reverence and care in his gaze that she swallows and slowly brings herself back into him. This kiss is more like the one back in the lab, their tongues wrestling together and her hands at the nape of his neck, but it’s different in it’s own right. It’s slower, less of them jumping each other and more of them coming together. She’s never done something like this before, taken her time that is. She’s only ever had sex twice in her life, it isn’t exactly the subtlest thing to do and when you’re constantly hiding from A.R.G.U.S. subtly is something you want to be good at. Both of those encounters were quick, not to mention meaningless in the long run, but this is different. She can’t explain it, but she can feel it in her bones, this is more than just a one-time thing.

“Pants.” She reminds him, whispering the word into his ear almost aggressively. He chuckles against her skin, the sound thick with want and mischief, and if that isn’t the most intoxicating sound she’s ever heard.

“You got it.”

He starts wiggling underneath her and she brings her hands down to help him. It only takes a few seconds for them both to get their pants and undergarments off, along with their shirts, and then it’s like everything has been kicked into overdrive.

He practically attacks her chest with kisses, his tongue licking at the underside of her breasts as she squeezes her knees against his hips. His teeth graze at her skin when he moans, and that gets hers to moan in return.

She wants him.

She is already so wet, and normally she would be riding him by now; but she wants to take her time with this.

Especially if the rest of her life might consist strictly of parent sex, she wants to take her time with this.

However, when his mouth works it’s way up to her nipple and his tongue rolls over it, she isn’t sure how long she’ll last with taking her time.

“Nate.” She gasps, practically humping with leg, and making a mess while doing it.

He doesn’t answer her, of course, damn him. Instead he presses a loving kiss on her breast, followed by another, and kisses his way across her cleavage and over to her other breast.

She pants, growing desperate as a warm and needy feeling builds up inside her, her hips moving and her legs spreading as her body takes the initiative to line him up with her entrance. She needs him inside of her, now.

“Condom.” She manages to gasp through the haze of need that is overtaking her, especially when his tongue finds her other nipple. “Condom.” She has to repeat it; otherwise she might convince herself to go ahead without it.

“Mm, in my room.” Nate whispers against her skin. “You?”

She groans, and not out of pleasure, unfortunately.

“Don’t have any.”

He pulls his head up and she whines, just a bit, because damn this sucks.

But then he smirks.

“That’s ok.”

“What?” She asks, actually jumping back from him a little. “Nate, we already have one kid on the way, now is not the time-”

“Not like that.” He says, a little chuckle in his voice.

She quirks her eyebrow, not following, and in response he reaches back and grabs her ankle. He lifts it up and presses a kiss to the inside, and then another, and he kisses his way slowly up the inside of her leg until he makes it to where her juices have started to run down her thigh, and then he changes his tactic to licking.

She drops her head back, her eyes closing and before they open she feels his tongue dip itself into her folds and she moans unashamedly with the pleasure it. She could swear he is grinning against her clit, and she is about to scold him for it but just as she is he kisses that very sensitive part of her and glides his tongue over it, and the words turn into another moan.

She bucks her hips against him and hears him chuckle, and she thinks he teases her about her eagerness but the words get lost among the gasps of her breath and her endlessly string of mentally begging for more.

Thankfully, she doesn’t need to voice that request out loud.

His tongue moves to tease at her entrance, his fingers replacing it on her clit, and she is almost crying with want by the time he actually puts his tongue inside her. It doesn’t take him much longer to undo her, it’s been so long for her, and before she knows it she’s crying out his name with her climax as she rides his mouth into sedation. She collapses on the bed, and he’s laughing as she starts to come down from the high and he crawls up her to meet her mouth with a kiss.

“See?” He teases, “Told you we could still do fun stuff.”

She laughs; looking up at his smiling face, and just as he starts to curl up beside her a thought crosses her mind.

“Get the egg.” She murmurs, rolling onto her side as though to keep him from suggesting she get up. “We’ve got a good amount of body heat right here.”

Her eyes are closed, but she’s pretty sure he’s grinning, and then his warmth is gone from her side and he’s climbing over her. He’s back soon, thankfully, and he settles down, his arm serving as a pillow and the egg between them.

Zari looks down at it while he gets both it and himself situated, and once that’s done she starts running her hand gently over it’s surface, imagining the child inside.

Their child.

“Are you sure you’re ok with this?”

She looks away from the egg and up at him, and he, in turn, is looking at her with genuine worry on his face.

“It’s just that… A few hours ago you said you didn’t want kids, and you’ve said it a couple times in the past. I just… I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this, you know? If you want to give the kid up for adoption, or to that Vincent guy if it turns out to be his, I understand.”

She nods, and thinks for a minute, her eyes going back to the egg where her hand is still caressing in gentle strokes up and down. She considers asking again if _he’s_ sure he wants to do this, especially if the kid does turn out to be Vincent’s. But she knows his answer; she doesn’t need the confirmation.

He isn’t anywhere near as complicated as she is.

“Behrad wanted kids.” She finally says; her eyes still trained on the egg. “Even with all the crap going on in the world, he wanted a family.”

She can feel Nate’s eyes on her, but she won’t match them; eye contact isn’t really her strong suit during conversations such as this one.

“We’d be sitting in all sorts of holding camps and detention centers, and he would talk about the future he wanted for his kids. Then he would try and convince me to want kids. He would tell me how good of a mom I’d be, and how our kids would grow up together…”

She trails off and scrubs at her eyes with her free hand, she hadn’t wanted or even expected to cry, but when it comes to Behrad, well, sometimes that’s a losing battle.

“I haven’t given up hope of trying to save him.” She says once she has mostly composed herself, now looking at Nate. “And I didn’t want kids because I didn’t want to put this world on them. But if this one’s coming anyway, then I want Behrad to have that future.”

Nate nods, a small, warm smile on his face.

“I think we should name it after him.”

She blinks.

She doesn’t know how exactly she’d been expecting him to react to this conversation, she hadn’t had time to think it over, but that certainly hadn’t been in her mind.

“If it’s a boy.” He continues, “And only if you want, of course. But it’s a nice name, it’s important to you, and when you save him, I’m pretty sure he’ll flip when he finds out he has a nephew named after him.”

She has to laugh at that mental image, as he isn’t wrong. If she does ever manage to save Behrad then he will flip out just at the mere knowledge that she, his sister who swore up and down she would never have kids, more of less reproduced. Add in his name, that might be enough to make him faint.

“What if it’s a girl?” She finds herself asking, and he shrugs.

“I’m sure we’ll think of something. What was your mom’s name?”

She blinks, stunned, once again.

“Maheen.” She answers, and he smiles.

“I like the sound of Maheen.”

It’s her turn to smile now, and looking back at the egg it is suddenly so much easier to picture the little thing inside. A part of her and Nate, and with that train of thought she finds herself frowning and looking back to Nate.

“What about your dad?” She asks, and he frowns for a moment and sighs, but shrugs.

“We had a tough relationship most of my life.”

“Still.”

“Still.” He counters, “Even if that weren’t the case, there is no way I am cursing a child with the name Hank.”

Ok, he has a point; she isn’t really thrilled with the sound of that name. If it weren’t his father’s name she probably would’ve scrunched up her nose right away.

“I kind of like Maheen better as a middle name.” She says, eyeing him carefully to watch for his reaction. “What about Hannah for a girl?”

Well, he scrunches up his face, but more like he’s considering rather than dismissing.

“Hannah Maheen.” He tests the name, and she has to admit she actually really likes the sound of it.

Judging by his smile, he does too.

“Ok. Yeah.” He chuckles, and she smiles too. “What about a middle name for a boy?”

She sighs, that’s going to be a tougher one.

“I don’t know. Behrad and I don’t have middle names. Dad always said it was because our culture doesn’t typically do middle names, but I think him and mom just couldn’t think of any.”

Nate chuckles, rolling onto his back as he does.

“We’ll think of one.”

She nods, a small smile on her face as she keeps her eyes on him, and then she frowns.

“What about the last name?”

Her words are quiet, barely spoken, and she hates the sight of him frowning and then rolling back to his side so she gets a better view of that frown. They each prop their heads on their hands, keeping themselves up on one elbow each, and each running one hand over the smooth shell of the egg.

“I mean… We know this kid is mine.” She continues, “But what if it’s not yours?”

He shifts slightly, but closer to her, which she’ll count as probably a good sign.

“That doesn’t change anything.” He promises, his voice serious. “Mine or not I still want this kid.”

She nods, and it isn’t like she didn’t know that already, but it still feels like a wave of relief watching over her to hear him say it out loud.

He rolls onto his back again, exhaling a long sigh.

“Guess we’re moving pretty fast here.”

“You think?” She deadpans, and even looking at his profile she sees him smirk.

“Yeah.” He muses, his voice as thoughtful as the expression on his face when he turns to look at her again. “You’re right. We know this kid is yours, and even if it is mine we’re already moving fast; I say we give it your last name.”

“Are you sure?” She asks, dropping her head and moving her hand to card her fingers through his messy hair.

“Yeah.” He answers, “I’m gonna be there either way, but we have to give the kid one of our last names, and for now it’ll raise less questions if it’s yours.”

She can’t argue with that, and truth be told she kind of wants the baby to have her last name, at least for now. He’s right in saying they’re moving fast, and she isn’t going to delude herself into thinking that they aren’t going to eventually have problems. The question is whether or not they’ll make it through those problems together. It’s not like she believes he’ll just leave their kid if they don’t, not for a second, but still, for now she would rather the kid have her name.

 

* * *

 

After Sara restarts the power and they break free of the ice, only to wind up losing both Ray and John again, they go into the temporal zone to try and track them down again.

The egg is back in the incubator, and the two of them are holed up in Nate’s room putting together baby furniture Gideon fabricated for them.

They’ve come up with the plan that since he doesn’t regularly stay on the ship anymore they’ll convert his room into a nursery, as well as put a bassinette in her room for the first few weeks. He’s looking for an apartment in D.C., so he’ll change his search from one bedroom to two bedrooms and in the meantime they’re sure his mom won’t be opposed to turning his childhood room into a nursery. He’ll move into the guest room, and when she stays over Zari will share with him and when he stays over The Waverider he’ll share with her. Easy.

“Imagine we don’t get Ray back until after the egg hatches.” He says, and Zari pauses in twirling her bolt into the crib. “I mean, if he gets back and we just have a kid…”

He trails off laughing, and a part of Zari knows he’s imagining the scenario solely to distract from the torture that they’re stuck in right now; just waiting for the magic detector to pick up a sign of Neron, or John to somehow make it back from Hell.

Or the possibility that Ray might really be gone.

“He’ll think he’s been gone for a year.” She muses, tightening the bolt some more, and Nate chuckles.

“Yeah.” He says, looking at the instructions yet again. “I guess we’re just waiting now.”

On Ray or the kid, she isn’t sure which he means, but in either case he’s right.

At least they have a timer on one of those waits.

34 hours.


	5. Chapter 5

34 hours, it seems, is an annoying amount of time.

It’s too short in one regard; how are they supposed to be fully prepared for a kid in 34 hours?

All things considered, Zari thinks they do pretty well on that end. They finish setting up all the furniture Gideon’s fabricated for them, they’ve put clothes in bins or drawers, organized bottles and pacifiers, and told the rest of their friends.

Ava was shocked.

Mona was ecstatic.

Gary is still a little out of it since the magic nipple was removed.

And Zari’s pretty sure Mick isn’t going to fully believe she and Nate are having a baby until he sees it.

Fair enough, she’s not sure she will either.

47 hours had seemed like no time at all two days ago when they first got the news, like it would pass in the blink of an eye. Then, after they got a handle on what they’re doing and some basic decisions, they were left with 34 hours, which again, seemed far too short.

But living it? It’s been far too long.

They have a timer counting down the minutes at this point, and with only two hours to go Zari is pacing circles around her floor.

“This is insane.” She mutters, of course Nate doesn’t look up. He’s lying on his stomach on her bed, staring at the egg in its little nest of blankets like it’ll disappear if he looks away.

He was holding it for the longest time, but eventually that drove them both crazy.

“Yeah,” he agrees, “I swear, if it’s not hatching by the time we hit two hours, I’m gonna lose it.”

“Yeah,” she huffs in agreement, “Me too.”

They’ve passed some of the last few hours by reading anything they could find on Yukaris, which was limited to one section in the smallest of John’s magic books. Charlie’s right, there isn’t much to know about them. After forming they basically become whatever species they’ve formed into, so they should really be looking into human development books for answers.

The book did say, however unhelpfully, that in any form Yukaris are like any other baby of any species, in that they come in their own time.

48 hours is apparently as exact a prediction as nine months for a human, meaning it could start hatching anywhere between essentially now, and possibly even tomorrow.

Zari does not like waiting.

“I think it moved!” Nate gasps and she whirls her entire body around, and watches it for a long moment, her breath held tight in her chest.

But nothing happens.

“I think you shifting on the mattress moved it.” She says and Nate deflates visibly, hugging her pillow just a little closer to his chest.

He freezes when the egg wiggles, visible even to her across the room, but as soon as his movement stops it stops and they both sign in defeat.

“Come on kid,” he practically whines, placing one hand on the egg. “Mom and I really want to meet you.”

She stops.

They haven’t said those words yet, mom and dad, and while her breath hitches she can’t bring herself to want him to take the word back.

He’s looking at her with worry though, like he thinks he’s overstepped, and so she goes to sit on the edge of the mattress.

“Your dad’s right.” She says with a tiny smile, resting her hand lightly on top of the egg. “We love you, and we’re so excited for you to come out already.”

She is perfectly aware that Nate is looking up at her, smiling, and so she continues to run her hand in gentle strokes over the egg.

* * *

 

Nate sleeps in Zari’s room that night, since the egg still hasn’t hatched. Well, actually, he doesn’t sleep so much as he lays awake staring at either the egg or Zari once she dozes off.

So much has changed lately, and looking down at the egg he’s reminded of how much more is about to change. Just a few days ago he only thought of Zari as someone he kind of liked, and now looking between her and the gold colored egg sandwiched between them, now she’s his future.

He leans over, careful of the egg, and presses a gentle kiss to her forehead. She scrunches her face in her sleep but doesn’t wake, and so he settles back down.

He drifts off at some point, he isn’t sure when, but he wakes up not too long later thanks to Zari’s foot kicking at his side.

He groans and reaches over to move her, not really out of sleep yet, but when his hand finds itself lying on something smooth and round rather than something as angular as a foot, his eyes snap open.

It isn’t Zari’s foot nudging against him; it’s the egg.

He gasps, and stares at it for probably a few seconds longer than he should. It’s toppled over onto its side and the very top of it is bobbing up and down ever so slightly.

“Zari.” He whispers as he sits up, his hand fumbling for her until he finds her shoulder and starts shaking until he hears her groan.

“What?”

“It’s hatching!”

She bolts up with that, her eyes flying to the egg along with his. She sees it too and her face quickly becomes anxious as her hands, which are starting to shake, go to the side of the egg.

When she looks at him she looks so afraid, and he swallows down a gulp of air.

Gideon had explained to them earlier that because the Yukari took on a human form the baby won’t have any special teeth to get itself out of the egg, and so when it becomes clear that it’s ready to hatch they’re going to have to help it out and break the shell from the outside.

“Now?” Zari asks, bringing him back to the moment.

He nods, and puts his own hands on either side of hers. The shell is supposed to be at it’s weakest on the sides, Gideon had said pressing their thumbs down should give enough pressure to crack it, and from there they could simply peel it away.

And it works.

The shell gives way under his thumb first, and after a moment of gawking at the tiny hole in wonder they carefully chip away at the hard casing of the shell.

It’s slimy underneath, and his fingers keep grazing the feel of skin that isn’t Zari’s. He can’t help grinning like and idiot at that, and when half the shell is gone and Zari, having the better angle for it, pulls their screaming baby out and into her arms he doesn’t think he’ll ever stop smiling.

“Oh… Come here. It’s ok sweetie, it’s alright, mamas here.” She coos, like she was born for this.

She rocks the baby gentle against her, pressing her lips lightly against its wet little head and only grimacing the tiniest bit. She knows exactly how to hold it, and for someone who didn’t want a kid 48 hours ago she takes to it as naturally as anyone.

He’ll have to ask her about that later, maybe.

“Hey,” She says to him, breaking him from his revere. “I couldn’t see at the angle, check and see if it’s a boy or a girl.”

He scrambles closer, crushing the discarded eggshell in the process, and gently nudges at the baby’s hips with his fingers as so to peel him just the slightest bit off of her.

“We got a boy.” He grins, looking up at Zari’s matching expression.

Yeah, he could get used to this future.

* * *

 

They don’t wait long after the hatching to go to the med bay; they don’t have the patience. It feels strange to Zari, carrying the egg around the ship was one thing but carrying this soft, squishy, human that is _her son_ feel so much different. Better, but different.

It’s so much more real.

They do wait until he’s stopped screaming to go, and once that’s happened Zari finds it difficult to get herself off the bed without disturbing him. But she manages and Nate doesn’t make one comment on how she has to rock her weight in order to do it.

They don’t run into anyone on their way, even though she’s sure the earlier crying woke the entire team, they’re probably wide awake and under an agreement to give her and Nate some time.

She can appreciate that.

When they get to the med bay she eases herself down into a chair, Behrad still snuggled soundly against her chest, and wow, that name is going to take some getting used to. It isn’t quite as difficult as getting up was, and by the time she’s settled Nate has the needle all prepped for the blood sample.

“Gideon?” She finds herself asking, her voice a whisper as so to avoid waking the baby. “Are you sure you can’t do this with a scan?”

“My apologies Ms. Tomaz.” The AI replies, her voice also lower than normal. “But in order to examine the child’s DNA, I will need a physical sample.”

“What about saliva?” Nate asks, “That’s going to be much easier to get.”

“Saliva will be fine Dr. Heywood.”

Ok, that’s good at least.

With a sigh of relief that matches hers Nate trades his needle for a tissue and wipes some of the drool from the corner of Behrad’s mouth, and he places it in Gideon’s synthesizer. The next few seconds are incredibly tense, and it feels like a lifetime until Gideon finally speaks up.

And, really, the answer is in her tone before she even gets to it.

“According to my results, the child’s parentage is derived from Ms. Tomaz and Mr. Vincent Arnolds.” She says, apologetically, and Zari closes her eyes for a moment.

When she opens them she settles them on Behrad, trying to get a real look at him. That’s something that is rather difficult to do at the moment, with his face turned away from her and squished into the crook of her neck. He has a head of black hair, slicked down by the slime from the egg, and is pink like any other newborn. Other than that she can’t really see what he looks like, but it still hurts to suddenly know she won’t be seeing any of Nate in his little face.

“Damn.” Nate huffs, sinking down onto the opposite chair. “I was really hoping…”

Yeah, she was too.

“Maybe it’s for the best.” She finds herself muttering, craning her neck to look at him over the baby sleeping in her sightline. “Things are still new between us, maybe this will make things easier if down the road…”

“Whoa, hey, I already told you; I’m still going to be here.”

“I know,” she assures him quickly, “I’m just saying that things are still new, we’ve barely started dating, but I know I never want to lose you as a friend, and that is going to be a lot easier if us potentially breaking up doesn’t include a custody battle.”

He still doesn’t look totally at ease with that, and to be honest she isn’t totally at ease with having said it, but she stands by it.

“Hey,” she says, hoping to divert the topic away from a possible future break up that she hopes never happens. “If you are going to stick around, mind taking him so I can wash this egg slime off of me?”

“Yeah.” He says, nodding and hurrying to grab a towel and a washcloth from a drawer.

He wets the washcloth and hurries to her side; towel slung over his shoulder, and does his best to wipe as much of the remaining slime off Behrad as he can. Once that’s done he lays the towel over the baby and tucks it very loosely under him, doing his best to wrap him in it. Their hand off is a bit awkward, but only out of unfamiliarity. Once they figure it out and Behrad is safe in Nate’s arms, and still sleeping by some small miracle, Zari gets up with a promise that she’ll be back soon.

She does stop in the doorway of the med bay, looking back with the intention of asking Nate if he needs anything.

But, the sight of him lightly bouncing the bundle in his arms stops her, and has her watching contently.

Yeah, she thinks, she’s sure about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone for reading and for your lovely comments!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so after that finale I needed to write a fix it, and I really like this little verse so here we are!

Zari is rubbing the sleep from her eyes as she walks into the library, she knew there was a reason other than a shitty world that she didn’t want kids; she values sleep too much.

Behrad is only three days old and settling into a very restless schedule. She and Nate have probably slept a combined six hours between them since he came, and now they’re preparing to take on Neron and The former Fairy Godmother before they bring about Hell on Earth.

“Hey,” Nate greets her when she enters. “You get Behrad down?”

She groans as she nods. “Yeah, let’s see how long it lasts.”

“You know, you could take a nap while we’re getting everything ready.”

She knows that, and she is tempted, but she shakes her head and comes to a stop behind his chair, leaning down and wrapping her arms around his neck.

“No, I want to help.”

She can feel his warm breath on her wrists as he chuckles, and it makes her smile.

“You’re not going to be much help if you’re about to pass out.” He laughs and she hums, reveling in the feeling of his strong shoulders under her.

“How come you’re not tired?” She mumbles.

“I am.” He promises, “So far I’ve had three cups of coffee and a monster.”

“Please don’t give yourself a heart attack.” She half-heartedly scolds, “I need you to suffer with me.”

He laughs, turning in her arms enough to give her a kiss.

“I’ll suffer with you tonight.” He promises, though there are absolutely no fun implications in that promise, or maybe there are and she’s just too tired to see them. “But first I have to draw Hey-World into existence.”

Right, because that is how their lives work.

She hums and pushes off him, settling herself behind him with one of her hands still touching lightly on his shoulder, honestly just falling asleep on her feet and daydreaming about a cup of coffee she is too tired to get for herself…

Then a startling beep snaps her out of it.

“Ms. Tomaz.” Gideon says, and she is fully expecting to be told her health readings are showing that she needs that nap Nate suggested or else she’ll drop in the middle of the mission.

“Your simulation has detected a change in your presently predicted future.”

Well, now she’s awake.

Her heart flutters but she quashes it down. A change could mean anything. She designed that program to predict and alert Gideon to even the most miniscule event, though she doubts Gideon has shared every minor finding with her. But it could be anything, now is not the time for hope.

“A good change or a bad change?” She asks cautiously, and she feels Nate has gone tense under her hand.

“In one potential 2042, building Hey-World leads to an era of understanding and tolerance. The anti-metahuman act of 2029 never passes and your parents live out their lives peacefully in Seattle. The future as you know it would be completely changed.”

She turns away from Nate; she has to, because between this and being so overtired she is going to cry. She never thought… She never thought she, they, could save the whole future. Save Behrad yes, she’d held out hope for that. Her parents if she was lucky. But the whole future...

She hears Nate get up and come next to her, and she wants nothing more than to throw her arms around him and cheer but…

But one tear slips free and a sad smile crosses her face.

“My parents.” She says, looking down at her folded arms. “Behrad.”

“That means a piece of this crazy plan actually works. This great news right?”

It should be, it really should be. It’s all she’s ever wanted.

“If this works my brother survives.” She tells him; she really doesn’t know whether to feel ecstatic or devastated right now. She wants to be ecstatic, so badly. “I never steal his Totem back from A.R.G.U.S., I never join the Legends.”

Nate looks like he’s starting to see the problem now, at least.

“The last two years wouldn’t have happened.” She pauses only long enough to take a shuttering breath. “Including Behrad.”

That’s the final blow for them both. Nate looks down at the floor, and tears are now streaming down both her cheeks.

“If this works then my brother and my parents survive.” Her lip quivers, it’s taking all her strength to hold back the full-blown sob. “But my son fades into oblivion and I forget he ever existed.”

The last half of that come out in a miserable squeak and her body crashes forward into Nate. He holds her tight, allows her to cry against his chest while her fingers practically claw into his back she’s so desperate. Is this really what it’s come to? A choice between her family of birth and the family she’s found here? Between her parents and her team? Her brother and her son? With one decision she’ll never forgive herself, and with the other she’ll be too brainwashed to remember the horrible price she chose to pay.

“No you won’t.”

It’s a miracle that she hears Sara’s calm, and yet somehow assured, voice coming from the doorway; it makes her wonder how long the Captain has been standing there. She sniffles and scrubs away her tears as she straightens up, watching Sara as she marches in.

“While we’re at Hey-World you and Behrad will be here on the ship, in the temporal zone. You’ll be safe.”

“Sara I can’t,” She stops to wipe away the last of her tears. “I can’t sit this one out.”

“Look I’m not gonna lose another Legend.” Sara firmly informs her, a vindication in her voice that almost scares her. “And who said we’re not putting you to work? We need to make sure what happens at Hey-World is seen globally.”

Right. Right they do need that. So maybe… maybe this can work. Maybe she can get her family back, her whole family, from both timelines.

“I can see if I can use the EYES app as a backdoor into the phones that downloaded it.”

Yeah, yeah that’s a plan, and as she looks more into it, turns out it is a very feasible one.

Within only a few hours Hey-World is up and functional and she’s set up with two laptops as well as Gideon’s wall monitor to keep track of broadcasting the show. She has to leave the library when Behrad wakes up from his nap, and to make things easier on both herself and her job she settles him into a carrying wrap Gideon fabricated for her and Nate.

“Hey Z,” Nate’s voice suddenly comes over the comms just as she steps back into the library, “You and your mom are here.”

She sees it on the monitor before he says it, the image of her self as a little girl holding hands with her very pregnant mother. It’s almost subconsciously that she presses her hand against the warm lump of her own baby swaddled against her chest. Man, what is her mother going to think?

“Yeah.” She replies, “I see them. I mean, us.”

She shakes her head, pulling herself out of her reverie. She can worry about her parents’ reaction to their grandchild later, after this plan has officially changed history and saved their lives. For right now she goes back to the laptops and checks on the progress she had left one of them with when she went to get Behrad.

“Ok, stream’s up.” She confirms for Nate. “You look great by the way.”

She can’t see him, for the record, but she needs something about this to be like any other mission and flirting with him seems to be a new normal.

“Aw, thank you for noticing I showered.” He retorts and she smirks, and just then Behrad starts fussing. “How’s our little buddy doing?”

“Fine.” She answers, carefully adjusting the baby as she does so. “He just woke up from his nap. I have him in the wrap but I’m not sure I’m wearing it right.”

“Is it in an X across your chest?”

“Yeah, and then the rest of it is wrapped around my waist. It’s holding him.”

“Sounds right to me.”

It looks right to, not to mention she’s practiced putting it on enough times without him she could probably do it with her eyes closed.

“Yeah, he’s probably going to need a diaper soon.” That’s actually more of a definite than a probably, she knew she should’ve brought some in here with her.

“Just keep taking care of him.” Nate says, and she can practically hear his smile through the comms. “And when this is all over, he can meet his grandparents and his uncle.”

She can’t help but smile too, a warm feeling fluttering in her chest that has nothing to do with the baby squirming against it.

She and Nate talk a bit more about the plan and then, while waiting for the show to start, she makes a quick trip to the nursery for diapers and manages to have Behrad all settled and content in his pack ‘n play by the time she actually needs to focus on broadcasting the show.

Everything is going according to plan, the reaction from the audience could be better but people worldwide are at least viewing it, so she is choosing to remain cautiously optimistic that things will turn around once the creatures start preforming.

But, alas, they don’t get that far.

Instead, a freaking dragon shows up.

Somehow it actually turns out to work to their favor at first. It gets the crowd interested, until they realize this is NOT part of the show and being unable to evacuate them means that Tabitha can open up the Hell portal right then and there with all the fear energy they’re providing. Before that happens the dragon corners Sara and Tabitha orders him to burn her, and Zari can do nothing but sit there powerlessly on the edge of her seat and watch.

Well, this her anyway.

“Stop!”

She doesn’t recognize the voice right away, but then she looks to the monitor and her jaw comes unhinged. It’s her. Little her. Her nine-year-old self has gotten away from her mom and stepped between Sara and the snarling dragon.

“Stop.” She repeats, and fiddling anxiously with her necklace Zari looks over to Behrad and then back to the screen.

“Oh kid, please don’t kill us.” She mutters.

She watches with her breath held as Tabitha orders the dragon to burn her, and as she orders him to dance.

He dances.

He almost takes young her and Sara out with his tail, but he dances.

“Damn.” She hears Mick say to himself, “Brave kid.”

“Thanks.” She says proudly, and she can almost picture the puzzled look on his face.

“You know her?”

She laughs to herself, well and him, at that.

“I am her.”

Ok, this time she actually adjusts the monitor, and the wide-eyed look of respect on Mick’s face is completely worth losing visual of the fight for ten seconds.

She adjusts the monitor back just in time to see the dragon eat Tabitha, so that threat is over at least, but they still have Neron to deal with.

Oh, and he’s dealt with alright, and Nate pays the price.

She watches it happen.

Her breath hitches and her hand flies to her mouth as she watches Neron, in Ray’s body, strangle Constantine with one hand but then… then it isn’t Constantine. It’s Nate.

Ray’s deal with Neron is broken, he’s defeated, but Nate… Nate is gone.

“Nate?” She mutters, her breath already heavy. “No. No.” She’s on her feet before she can even think about it. “Gideon take us to Hey-World.”

“I must advise against that course of action. The changes to your future are still in progress. If you leave the temporal zone your current memories won’t be safe, and your son will cease to exist.”

Zari can tell that Gideon adds that part as a reminder of exactly how much is at stake. He memories are one thing, but Behrad…

“How much time do you think I have if I go?” She asks, trying to formulate some form of plan in her mind.

“Ms. Tomaz-”

“Gideon.”

There’s a pause, during which she starts to think Gideon is ignoring her and she almost barks the question again.

“I would estimate less than ten minutes.”

Ok. Ok she can work with that.

“Ok Gideon. I need you to take us to Hey-World and then fly the ship back into the temporal zone as soon as I’m off.”

“Ms. Tomaz there is-”

“Trust me Gideon.” She orders through gritted teeth, “I have a plan.”

She does, for the record. A very quickly thought out, not guaranteed to work, plan. But a plan all the same.

She quickly gets Behrad back in his sling, deciding to take him with her just in case this doesn’t work. If he’s in the temporal zone and she isn’t then he will vanish, because she was never in his timeline to hold his egg. But if she has him with her then maybe, just maybe, the universe will be kind enough to let her keep him.

Once she’s at Hey-World she sprints through the crowds and into the arena, and then through that crowd. All the while she keeps one firm hand on Behrad and with the other hand, in true fashion of growing up on the streets of what can only be described as a dystopia, she pickpockets Ava.

She practically shoves Ray and Nora out of her way, kneeling beside Nate and fully ignoring Sara as she tells her she can’t be here. She frames Nate’s face with her hands, calling to him, but his skin is cold and he doesn’t respond.

“Nate, Nate come on.” She begs, over and over again until she finally just starts crying and bows her head. It ends up tucked between Nate’s chin and Behrad and oh, how is she going to do this without him?

“Nate.” She cries, “Nate you… you promised you would be here. You promised.”

She is vaguely aware of Sara’s hand on her shoulder, half impatient and half comforting. She just keeps crying. She knows she should go back now; she shouldn’t push her luck. There is nothing she can do to save him and her tears are upsetting Behrad. Sara moves her hands to him, a silent offer to take him, but she swats her away. No. She can at least save him. If she can’t save Nate the least she can do is save her son so that she can tell him about the man who loved him so much he was willing to step in and be his father, even before she was sure about being his mother.

She is still sobbing, her last functioning brain cells that are probably only doing so on maternal instinct, get her fingers to fumble down towards her jacket pocket-

“His horse and his cattle are his only companions!”

She stops and looks up, and Mick stops singing every bit as abruptly as he started. Behrad crying is basically the only sound in the room until Mick asks if he has something on his face.

“Did you just sing?” Ava asks.

“James Taylor?” Sara finishes for her, and just like that something, she isn’t sure what or why, but some odd sense of hope lights in her chest.

“I don’t sing.” Mick denies while the Minotaur starts playing his lute.

“I think someone from beyond is trying to help us out.” It’s John’s words that turn the spark of hope into a fire for her.

This shouldn’t work, for so many reasons, but there are a lot of things they’ve done that shouldn’t work.

So, she starts to sing.

“He works in the saddle lands and sleeps in the canyons.”

“Waiting for summer, his pastures to change.”

One by one, everyone joins in. Behrad even quiets, and soon the whole arena is filled with people singing James Taylor.

John takes up Tabitha’s staff and starts harvesting the energy from around the room…

And then Nate jolts awake.

The first thing he does after springing to his feet, her following him, is he kisses her deeply, mindful of their son sandwiched between them and oh she feels bad leaving him like this, but she has already been here longer than she probably should’ve.

She has one hand on his jaw, the other in her pocket, and the second he pulls away she just barely catches the glimpse of his clearly worried face before she activates Ava’s time courier and takes a backwards step through it.

 

* * *

 

Nate processes, about halfway through a kiss with Zari he wishes could last forever, that her being here means she isn’t safe from the temporal changes and he pulls away to tell her as much.

But she disappears.

_No._

His mind gasps at the empty space she was just standing in. No. She can’t be gone. She can’t be. Not yet. Not-

“Nate it’s ok.” Sara says from somewhere nearby. “We saw it, she opened a portal behind her. She’s safe.”

Oh thank God.

He breathes out in relief, although he suddenly can’t remember why. Probably something to do with no longer being dead, though that doesn’t feel right. He feels like he was worrying about Zari but she’s fine, isn’t she? She’s on the ship running point, broadcasting their defeat of Neron and-

“Ray!” Suddenly his train of thought abandons its tracks as he notices his friend standing next to Nora, safe and very much not possessed by a demon. He’ll feel guilty about literally knocking Behrad out of his way later.

 

* * *

 

As the portal closes in front of her Zari lets out a breath, her hands flying to cradle her son through the wrap as though needing to confirm that he is still there, like the weight of him hanging off her doesn’t do that on it’s own.

“Did it wor-” She cuts herself off, or rather, a headache erupting in her skull does.

“More or less, Ms. Tomaz.” She vaguely hears Gideon say, “You just barely made it back in time to save your and your son’s existences as you know them. However, your time spent exposed to the fluctuating timeline has caused you to gain new memories from the current timeline. Professor Stein experienced something similar after accidently influencing his younger self to desire children and have a daughter, thus changing the timeline as he knew it.”

She can’t listen anymore about halfway through that, she is too focused on the echoing pain.

But it’s ok; she’ll deal with it, happily.

The memories come in flashes.

An apartment in 2042, her brother, Kuasa attacking, and they both got on the ship. She remembers him and Amaya, feeling like a third wheel, the time loop, him trying to bring her back to her senses when she was under the power of the love dust and almost got married. Teasing her about giving his name to her son as a middle name, and then playfully refusing to refer to the baby by his first name. She remembers everything, except this time Behrad is there. The old timeline fades into the back of her mind like a bad dream she can hardly recall as the headache subsides and she straightens up. It’s only then that she realizes her how hunched over she’s been and that it’s disturbed Behr- no, Alexander. The name brings a smile to her face, though she isn’t sure why. Probably amused she caught herself. She will NOT give Behrad the satisfaction of falling into his habit of calling her baby by his middle name.

“Gideon?” She asks as she maneuvers Alex out of the wrap and starts to rock him. “Is the rest of the team back yet?”

“They’ve just arrived on the bridge Ms. Tomaz.”

There’s something in Gideon’s tone she can’t quite place, a happiness she doesn’t normally hear, but she chalks it up to the fact that they’ve just taken down their big bad, so to speak, and starts on her path for the bridge.

The whole team is, in fact, there when she arrives, and she can’t explain why considering Nate is the one who just almost died, and Ray is the one whose been possessed by a demon for the past week, Constantine the one whose been in Hell, but her heart quickens when her eyes land on her brother and she all but shoves Alex into Charlie’s arms so she can storm him in a hug.

“Whoa…” He laughs, wrapping his arms around her anyway. “Uh, not that I’m not happy to see you sis, but it’s only been like two hours.”

She laughs as she pulls away, and why is there a tear in her eye? She really must be tired.

“I know, but normally I’m out there to make sure you don’t do anything stupid. Which reminds me…” She says, turning to Nate. “Tricking Neron into killing you?”

He shrugs, like his five minutes of actual death was nothing. “You guys brought me back.”

“Still.” She says, rolling her eyes. “Next time I’m monitoring the broadcast from my tablet, baby or no baby.”

Nate smirks and leans down to give her a quick kiss, which is of course met with a few exclamations of “yuck” and Mick’s hum of amusement. They’re both grinning when they part, more than used to this by now.

“Ok.” Charlie says, “We won, what now?”

Mick opens his mouth, probably to suggest they give Aruba another go, but Behrad slings his arm around her shoulders and opens his big mouth before Mick can have a chance.

“If I’m remembering right, I believe Zari still has something to tell our parents.”

She tips her head back and groans, like she needed that reminder.

“Ok.” Sara agrees with a smirk before she can argue. “Shore leave in 2042 it is.”

She rolls her neck to look up at Behrad as they all start filing to their flight seats, and he’s grinning at her like he did when they were children and he would tattle on her.

“If dad kills me and Nate.” She says, “You’re responsible for Alex.”


End file.
